Children need lots of
explicit and systematic phonics instruction in order to be able to
read.
Beginning readers need to know that words are made of sounds.
They
also need to know which letters make each sound. Because all words have
vowels
in them, it is usually best to begin teaching vowels. It is easier to
teach
short vowels because they are most commonly found in words with only
one vowel.
This lesson will focus on a = /a/. Students will review the
short a
sound, and then the students will practice spelling and reading words
with the
/a/ sound.

"Today
we are going to be learning about the short vowel A and the sound that
it
makes. Every time you see an /a/ in a word, I want us to make the sound
of a
crying baby, aaahhh. Ok now I want everyone to act like a baby and make
the
crying sound… ready, aaahhhh, Good! This sound is a sound that we hear
all the
time in our language.

2.Introduce
the
tongue twister to the students.

I
will hold up a sentence strip: "Ok, now let’s say this tongue twister
together: Adam gave his alligators apples after they asked nicely.

3.Using
the
overhead and the letter manipulatives, ask the students to name the
words that
have the aaahhh sound in them and model the way to sound out the sounds
in the
words to the class. "Who can give me a word that has a crying baby
sound?
Good, nap. Now, if I were going to spell that word, I would listen to
the
sounds, /n/, /aaaaaa/ (there’s our sound), and /p/." Practice more
words
using the Elkonin boxes.

4.
"Now I want everyone to get out your boxes and letters and we are going
to
practice a few words." Have the students leave their letters on their
boards and then check the spelling. Start with three phoneme words, and
then
move to four and five phonemes. (3 phonemes) [s] [a] [d]
[l] [a] [p]

5. "Now I am going to spella few
words back to you. If you know what word I am spelling, raise your hand
and you
can answer." Without using the boxes, spell out the words to make sure
they can read them.

6. With the book A Cat Nap, get into small groups or partners
with
children and have the students read the book aloud. They can assess
each other
by grading each other on reading speed, expression, and knowing more
words

Assessment:

For
an assessment, you can have a picture sheet with lots of different
pictures
using different sounds and have the students circle the pictures with
the /a/
sound in their name. Have pictures of apples, alligators, desks, lamp,
shirt,
etc.